Assemblies of God

The World Assemblies of God Fellowship, or Assemblies of God for short, is the world's largest Pentecostal denomination, with over 12,100 churches in the U.S. and in 236,022 churches and outstations in 191 other nations, with approximately 56.9 million adherents worldwide.

The Assemblies of God has aggressive missions programs that are designed to establish self-supporting and self-propagating national church bodies in every country. As of late 2006, the Assemblies of God World Missions Research Office reported constituencies in 212 countries and over 5,000 adherents added per day. As of 2005, the fellowship operated 859 Bible schools, 1,131 extension programs and 39 seminaries outside of the United States.

History

The Assemblies of God has its roots in the Pentecostal revival of the early twentieth century. This revival is generally traced to a prayer meeting at Bethel Bible College in Topeka, Kansas, on January 1, 1901. The "awakening" or "revival" spread rapidly to Missouri, Texas, California and elsewhere. In 1906, a three year revival meeting began at Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles that attracted believers from around the world.

Reports of the revival were carried far and wide by periodicals and other publications that sprang up along with the movement. Independent revivals also began to break out during this time in other parts of the world. The Pentecostal aspects of the revival were not generally welcomed by established churches, and participants in the movement soon found themselves forced outside existing religious bodies. These people sought out their own places of worship, and founded hundreds of distinctly Pentecostal congregations.

By 1914, many ministers and laymen alike began to realize just how far-reaching the spread of the revival had become. Many evangelistic outreaches birthed by the new movement created a number of practical problems-- Formal recognition of ministers, approval and support of missionaries, doctrinal unity, gospel literature, and a permanent Bible training school, and full accounting of funds were all issues that needed to be dealt with.

Concerned leaders felt the desire to protect and preserve the results of the revival these thousands of newly Spirit-baptized believers by uniting through cooperative fellowship. In 1914 about 300 preachers and laymen gathered from 20 states and several foreign countries for a "general council" in Hot Springs, Arkansas, to discuss and take action on these and other pressing needs.
A cooperative fellowship emerged from the meeting and was incorporated under the name The General Council of the Assemblies of God. In time, self-governing and self-supporting general councils broke off from the original fellowship or were formed independently in several nations throughout the world, originating either from indigenous Pentecostal movements or as a direct result of the indigenous missions strategy of the General Council.

The Assemblies of God experienced a major schism early in their history when they adopted the doctrine of the Trinity at their Fourth General Council in October 1916 in St. Louis. Those that withdrew from the fellowship were known as "Oneness Pentecostals," who believed in baptizing "in the name of Jesus Christ" and not "in the name of The Father, The Son, and the Holy Ghost/Spirit." This schism caused the loss of approximately one-fourth of recognized A/G ministers, including all ministers in the state of Louisiana. Oneness ministers met in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, and on January 2, 1917, they formed their own fellowship, a Oneness Pentecostal organization, which later became known as the United Pentecostal Church International.

In 1988, the loose body of cooperative councils joined under the name World Pentecostal Assemblies of God Fellowship as result of an initiative by Dr. J. Philip Hogan, then executive director of the Division of Foreign Missions of the General Council of the Assemblies of God of the United States. The initial purpose was to coordinate evangelism, but soon developed into a more permanent organism of inter-relation. Dr. Hogan was elected the first chairman of the Fellowship and served until 1992 when Rev. David Yonggi Cho was elected chairman. In 1993, the name of the Fellowship was changed to the World Assemblies of God Fellowship.